Biden-Xi Niú Year Call & BBC Tuned Out

Below are the stories that I found noteworthy from the People’s Daily’s February 12, 2021, edition.

Happy 牛 Niú Year folks; please do drop a line if you enjoy the content of the newsletter or have suggestions to improve it; also, do please share it within your networks.

Page 1: It’s New Year’s in China; so the front page today isn’t really about a lot of hard news. But we do have the Biden-Xi call as one of the lead stories, and I am doing a bit of a dive into related developments.

PD’s report is the same as the Xinhua English report that both leaders exchanged greetings for the New Year and Xi congratulated Biden on his inauguration. Xi then reportedly said that “one of the most important events in international relations over the past half century has been the restoration and development of Sino-US relations.” This is obviously from a historical standpoint. He then talked about how China-US relations are currently at an important juncture. 

Xi’s Framework for Ties: You have said that America can be defined in one word: Possibilities. We hope the possibilities will now point toward an improvement of China-U.S. relations. The two countries should work together and meet each other halfway, uphold the spirit of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation, focus on cooperation, manage differences, promote the healthy and stable development of Sino-US relations…”

Big Sticking Point: “Taiwan, Hong Kong-related issues, and Xinjiang-related issues are China's internal affairs, which are related to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The United States should respect China's core interests and act with caution.”

Next Steps from China’s Perspective: “Xi Jinping emphasized that China and the United States will have different views on some issues. The key is to respect each other, treat each other as equals, and properly manage and handle them in a constructive manner. The foreign affairs departments of the two countries may have in-depth communications on wide-ranging matters in the bilateral relationship and major international and regional issues, and the economic, financial, law enforcement and military authorities of the two countries may also have more contacts, Xi said. The two sides should re-establish the various dialogue mechanisms, read each other's policy intentions accurately, and avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation, he said, adding that it is important to manage differences where they exist and jointly pursue cooperation where it is desirable to do so.”

On International Affairs: The piece has Xi talking about China contributing to the fight against the pandemic, promoting world economic recovery, and maintaining regional peace and stability. “The two sides should follow the trend of the world, jointly maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, and make historic contributions to promoting world peace and development.”

PD’s Bit on Biden’s Comments: “Biden said that China is a country with a long history and great civilization, and the Chinese people are great people. The United States and China should avoid conflicts and can cooperate in a wide range of areas such as climate change. The US is willing to conduct frank and constructive dialogues with China in a spirit of mutual respect, so as to enhance mutual understanding and avoid misunderstanding and misjudgment.”

Here’s a Xinhua English commentary talking about the three key points from the call.

The White House’s readout after the call was very brief. 

“President Biden affirmed his priorities of protecting the American people’s security, prosperity, health, and way of life, and preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific. President Biden underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan. The two leaders also exchanged views on countering the COVID-19 pandemic, and the shared challenges of global health security, climate change, and preventing weapons proliferation. President Biden committed to pursuing practical, results-oriented engagements when it advances the interests of the American people and those of our allies.”

That’s really short for what Biden said was a two-hour-long call between the two leaders. So clearly a lot more was discussed. WSJ reports that Biden also told reporters that “If we don’t get moving, they’re going to eat our lunch. They have major, major new initiatives on rail.” He also spoke about China’s advances in electric vehicles.

Here’s how the State Department responded to questions following the call:

“the readout broadly made clear that even though we see this relationship through the lens of competition and our broad posture vis-a-vis China is to work to position ourselves to compete and to outcompete with the Chinese across any number of realms, the readout from last night made very clear that the President of the United States – and this also applies to the Secretary of State and to other officials – we will engage the Chinese when it is consistent with our interests, when it is our – is in our interests, and consistent with our values.”

Edward Price also pointed out two potential areas of cooperation, i.e., climate change and reducing the risk from the “world’s most dangerous weapons.”

On China and Myanmar, he said: “we continue to call on China to condemn the coup that took place in Burma on February 1st. We would hope and we would expect that the Chinese would play a constructive role in bringing about the restoration of democracy, of civilian rule to Burma.”

A couple of more interesting developments in the US-China context are the US DoD’s formation of a new China Task Force “to provide a baseline assessment of department policies, programs and processes in regard to the challenge China poses.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Wednesday call with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi. Blinken “expressed concern over increased Chinese assertiveness around the Diaoyu Islands Islands following China’s enactment of a new coastguard law”, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “Blinken reaffirmed that the Senkakus fall within the scope of Article V of the US-Japan Security Treaty,” he said, referring to the section that commits the two nations to defend each other if either is attacked. Also, on Wednesday, Taiwan and the United States held their first publicly acknowledged formal meeting in Washington under the new administration. Taiwan’s defacto ambassador to the United States, Hsiao Bi-khim, met Sung Kim, acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. 

Page 2: There’s a report on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. I am not detailing this. You can check out What’s on Weibo’s Live Blog for details on what went down. Also, check out this from SupChina: Once again, blackface and single-shaming jokes are featured at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.

Page 3: A short report on BBC being banned in China. It says that the State Administration of Radio and Television reported on the 11th that after investigation, the relevant content of the China-related reports of the BBC World News’ coverage had seriously violated Chinese regulations and “the requirement that news should be truthful and fair,” and “not harm China’s national interests” or “undermine Chinese national unity.” Therefore, the BBC was being banned and its application to air for another year would not be accepted. Of course, this comes after CGTN’s license was revoked in the UK. Here’s how Britain responded to this:

Dominic Raab: China’s decision to ban BBC World News in mainland China is an unacceptable curtailing of media freedom. China has some of the most severe restrictions on media & internet freedoms across the globe, & this latest step will only damage China’s reputation in the eyes of the world.

US State Department: “We absolutely condemn the PRC’s decision to ban BBC World News. The PRC maintains one of the most controlled, most oppressive, least free information spaces in the world. It’s troubling that as the PRC restricts outlets and platforms from operating freely in China, Beijing’s leaders use free and open media environments overseas to promote misinformation. We call on the PRC and other nations with authoritarian controls over their population to allow their full access to the internet and media. Media freedom, as we’ve said, is an important right, and it’s key to ensuring an informed citizenry, an informed citizenry that can share their ideas freely amongst themselves and with their leaders.”

Next, a report featuring folks from overseas Chinese associations praising Xi’s New Year speech.

Finally, an article by Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Iran. He talks about 50 years of China-Iran ties. He writes that “both Iran and China adhere to an independent foreign policy politically, pursue cooperation economically, and support each other in international affairs...Iran has actively participated in the joint construction of the Belt and Road and hopes to play a greater role in it. There is no doubt that the development of Iran-China relations is based on mutual respect for sovereignty and independence, respect for each other's different social systems, and win-win cooperation.”